


(After Lil' Nugget) Every Night

by LizardWhisperer



Series: Lil' Nugget Series [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Adult Castiel, Case Fic, Confused Sam, Huggies (not the diapers), Minor Original Character(s), Other, Post-Lil Nugget, Protective Castiel, Sensitive Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 10:54:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7888480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LizardWhisperer/pseuds/LizardWhisperer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel is no longer little--will life simply go on?</p>
            </blockquote>





	(After Lil' Nugget) Every Night

**Author's Note:**

> While this is a Lil' Nugget TS, Cas has been big for awhile. Things were left kinda open--and I guess they still are.  
> Wink-wink.
> 
> (I like writing cases. The LW mind fluctuates between "this could totally happen on Supernatural" and a big load of angsty fluffernuttuh.)

While the structure appeared on a Google search of “American Castles,” any likeness to its regal medieval cousins lay beneath layers of spray-painted gang tags and piles of crumbling walls.  Besides the eerily still erect staircase, jutting unnaturally skyward from the center of the ruins, the castle’s most prominent feature was its lack of roofing.  It looked dangerous, uninviting—foreboding.

Sam and Dean stepped amongst the chunks of stone and mortar, weapons drawn and ready, as Dean swept his head side-to-side, directing the flashlight in his teeth.  The nearby townsfolk had been bursting with supernatural tales of the ruins, some dating back to the days of the building’s grandeur, some two hundred years ago.  Long-used for military surplus storage, guards were said to disappear behind the walls, never to be seen again.  When family inquired of their whereabouts, they found their loved-ones’ military records expunged—and steel doors closed in their faces.

Sam interviewed one shriveled old woman, her skin like worn leather, who relayed her grandmother’s oft-told explanation for her father’s abandonment of his wife and four children.  Her grandma said her mother maintained her young husband had run off with another woman, but as Suzie chain-smoked and coughed between sentences, Sam listened patiently to the castle secrets the man had told his youngest daughter one late night, nursing a bottle of whiskey in his fist.  Secrets passed down generations. Military experiments, involving time and inter-dimensional travel where test subjects failed to re-materialize or worse— _did_ , but returned _unwhole_ reminded the hunter of the fabled Philadelphia Experiments.  Suzie eyed him suspiciously through her thick glasses, stained with smoke, as the hunter tucked his long hair behind an ear and scribbled earnestly on a notepad. Of course, having personally experienced time-travel and visited a multitude of realities and dimensions, Sam Winchester believed every word she spoke.

The more recent stories around town centered on ghost sightings—translucent entities that reached desperately towards their terrified human counterparts.  Of course, giving the location, many of the humans were in their teens and often under the influence of mind-altering substances and their stories were taken for what they sounded like—partying side-effects. Until two sixteen year-olds entered the ruins on a dare to record a make-out selfie. Police searched the grounds when the kids failed to return home, only finding a cell phone (selfie-stick still attached) and a few empty beers. Their disappearances caused enough alarm, but what had alerted Sam and Dean to the online news story was the attachment of young Randy Cliff’s cell phone footage.

As they reached the spot behind the gravity-defying staircase where the phone had been found, Dean lowered his salt round-loaded gun and took the flashlight out of his mouth, exploring the area carefully.  “Hello? Randy? Jenn?” Sam called into the darkness.  “Jason? Steven? Ross?” Sam continued to call the names of the men listed by the town as missing over the years, then—“Eugene Winslow?”

Both men startled at the shimmer of light, then raised their eyes to spot the unstable, flickering image of a man in antiquated military dress, descending the staircase jerkily.  They had seen a similar vision from the recovered phone.  While it appeared to use the stairs, the specter had no feet, its legs fading into space.

“Eugene?”

The entity stopped, its face contorted in abject misery, its wispy arms reaching, reaching…

“We know you’re not a ghost, Eugene.  We think we know what happened to you.  We can help—but only if you don’t take us with you.”  Dean had kept his voice even and sincere, but then, “’Cuz that would suck, ok?”

Sam gave his brother a requisite glance of annoyance.  Holding up a hand, he addressed the incorporeal figure, with confidence, “Just stay there, ok? Are the others with you?”

Eugene Winslow’s likeness drifted slowly closer, but cocked its see-through head a moment, apparently listening.  It made the slightest of nods, locking dark, empty eyes with Sam.  Dean looked at his brother in panic, as Sam’s eyes began to hollow out and he dropped his gun, raising his long arms slowly towards the staircase. As Dean grabbed his brother’s shoulder—it felt _softer_ than solid.

“Cas! Cas, now would be good!”

A flash of movement, a tan blur, and an impossibly bright light later, Sam’s shoulder solidified under his brother’s grasp, as his tall frame staggered back a step. “You with me, Sammy?”  Nodding at Dean, Sam took a deep breath and both hunters focused all around them as more than a dozen figures flashed into view, looking stunned, at best.

Randy Cliff hugged Jennifer Bradford tightly, “I could see you but couldn’t touch you.”

“I know,” cried the girl into her boyfriend’s shoulder, “I kept calling you, but no sound came out.”

Dean watched Castiel come down the stairs, leading Suzie’s great-grandfather, who took in the ruined castle in awe.

The angel stamped his foot on the cement floor, cracking it open and revealing a flashing device, which was shattered with one more stomp.

“Thanks, Cas.  What took you so long?”

The angel cleared his vessel’s throat, holding up a tarnished brass figure, its elegant arms raised to the heavens, “Shirkana had been moved from her original tomb in Cairo to a recently bombed-out museum in Syria.  I’m sorry, Dean, I had to do some digging.”

Dean clapped both Cas and Sam on the shoulders, “War is Hell, eh?  But you made it and Sam’s ok, so thanks, Nugget.”

Unfazed by the familiar nickname, Cas checked for himself that Sam was alright, as Dean turned to the confused group around them, “What’ll we do with them, Sam?” 

“Take them home, I suppose.  The whole town knows they disappeared mysteriously, Dean, it’s part of their history—they teach it in school. I don’t suppose they’ll need much convincing that they came back just as mysteriously.”

Sam turned to Eugene, “If you come with us, we’ll introduce you to someone who’s spent her whole life talking about you.”

Castiel offered to take the other hapless inter-dimensional travelers back to town where the authorities could help them. As they showed an overwhelmed Eugene to the Impala, Dean sent out a silent prayer to his angel, thanking him for his help. Again.

Ever since the “incident” ending Cas’ months as a toddler, the adult angel had eagerly helped out on every case the Winchesters investigated.  He was still the wealth of historical and spiritual knowledge he had always been—but with his grace and size returned, he was an invaluable hunter. He had saved his friends repeatedly and the hunters hadn’t faced a baddie the angel couldn’t kill.

But Sam and Dean still missed their little version of Cas, the one who played and giggled, broke down easily into tears, and fell asleep snuggled into their flannels.  Well, Sam missed cuddling Cas.  Dean, however, still got a nightly heaping dose of snuggly, warm angel.  Once again, despite providing Cas his own bed—and although the celestial being didn’t need to sleep—Cas spent his nights beside Dean.  Sometimes, he sat nearby and watched the hunter sleep, but most nights found Cas under the covers, stripped of his coat and suit jacket, tie and belt neatly rolled up and stored in his shoes, at the foot of the bed.

The first time Sam had discovered them “sleeping” together, Cas had lifted his head off Dean’s pillow and looked at Sam expectantly, but the tall hunter had quietly closed the door without comment.  Sam had at first been embarrassed, but since none of the three mentioned this arrangement, Sam eventually accepted it as normal for bunker life.  He watched the angel and his brother for other signs of intimacy, but aside from an increase in their physical proximity, Castiel and Dean seemed every bit “just friends.”

Sam had never been jealous of little Cas’ bond with his brother—it seemed just an extension of their previous closeness, Castiel having saved Dean from Hell and all.  But this was a little different—Cas now watched over Dean nightly.  Just like at the ruined castle, Cas had saved Sam’s life and healed him countless times and Sam never doubted Cas’ protectiveness and devotion towards him, he just…he just…why did Dean get to cuddle?

The hunt was a long way from home and while Castiel had teleportation powers, moving the Impala didn’t always prove an easy—or accurate feat.  After settling the people they had saved with the proper authorities, Team Free Will settled themselves into a local motel.  Three bodies, two beds—status quo.  Sam sat back on his pillows, updating the information on a website about haunted castles.  Sam only did this to keep other hunters abreast and avoid their chasing of closed cases.  Without Bobby to contact, Garth now collected this kind of information, but Sam was tired and, well—that call was an evening right there.  Dean was in the shower and Cas reclined, without his shoes, on the other bed, flicking channels on the small TV.

Sam kept typing and re-typing the same sentence, spelling wrong and doubling words, before he realized he was driven to distraction.

“Thanks again for saving me, Cas.”

“Of course, Sam.  I’m just sorry it took me so long—I don’t usually lose track of artifacts.”

“Well, you found the long-lost Goddess of Inter-Dimensional Travel’s cursed effigy, just in time.  I think you did pretty good.”

“You’re welcome, Sam.”

The hunter tried again to give the web page his attention, then, “Cas? You gonna spend the night there, tonight?”

Cas looked around the cramped motel room, as the water shut off in the bathroom.  “There’s only two beds and they are small,” the angel cocked his chin towards a chair, “I’ll stay there—unless you’d prefer I go somewhere else?”

Sam shook his head, “No, no, Cas, that’s not what I want at all.  I was just…curious.”

Cas sat up, swinging his suit pants over the side of the bed, facing Sam. “Why?”

Sam licked his lips—this was it. He glanced at the bathroom door, eager to finish this conversation before his brother emerged.  “Why do you sleep with Dean, Cas?”  There. He said it.

The angel shrugged slightly, “I like it.  I feel…it makes me…” Cas squinted his eyes, searching for the right words.  He looked at Sam, his eyes opening wide.  “I feel safe, Sam.”

Sam nodded, still a bit puzzled.

Cas continued, “I am millennia old, I’ve seen above, below, and inside this world, defended many, battled more, looked on the face of our Creator, but—“

Cas leaned forward towards Sam, his hands folded, “When I’m with you and Dean, sometimes I’m— _little_ again.”  Cas looked down at his hands, “It wasn’t all bad, being taken care of.  Hard at first, but there were times, if I hadn’t had the two of you, I don’t know if I’d have been able to go on.  Is it all that crazy to miss that?  Allowing someone to make me feel safe?  I hope me telling you this, Sam, doesn’t make you think I don’t want to protect you,”  Cas’ brow raised, as he implored the hunter with huge, blue eyes.

“No, not at all, Cas—and I understand, I do.  Just,” Sam listened to Dean tapping his razor on the sink, hesitating to continue. “Why Dean?  I mean, this sounds kinda petty, huh?  But why do you only sleep with Dean?”

Cas also looked towards the closed bathroom door, taking a beat to answer.

“I guess, because I always did?  I mean, long before I was de-aged, I spent most nights beside The Righteous Man.  You were often there, too.  If I got lost in meditation, I would materialize and Dean would wake up— _mad_.  He said it was creepy, so I stayed out of sight.”

Sam’s jaw dropped, then snapped shut.  “You mean, all these years, all those motel rooms, at Bobby’s, in the Impala—all those nights, you were with us?”

“Yes, Sam,” Cas looked a bit sheepish, “Except when you warded against me, when I—“the bathroom door opened, with a woosh of sweet-smelling steam.

“When I thought I was God.”

“That was a long time ago, buddy—what’s the occasion?” Dean was still scrubbing at his damp head with a towel.

“Just reminiscing,” said Sam, quickly, giving Cas a knowing look.

The angel rose off the bed, while Dean stashed his dirty clothes in his duffel.  The hunter looked up sharply, as Castiel asked, “Where would you like me to sleep, Dean?”

Dean eyed his brother, sure this was an offshoot of their private conversation.  “Wherever you want, Cas,” Dean never took his eyes off Sam, “Either bed is fine, they’re the same size.“ He smirked at his brother, “But we’re not.”

Sam cracked a smile, in spite of himself, as that reality sunk in. Duh.

“I think I’ll sit up and watch TV a bit,” said Cas, taking a seat by Dean’s bedside.

Dean shrugged and climbed into bed, “Suit’s yourself.  Goodnight, Nugget.”

Cas leaned down and the two men hugged warmly.

Sam sank under his covers, watching them.  When they parted, Cas rose to his feet and approached the other bed.  Sam wasn’t even surprised when Cas leaned over him to envelope him his own goodnight hug.  “Thanks, Hun,” said Sam, in Cas’ ear.

As he watched the angel make his way back to his chair, Sam whispered almost silently, “Missed you.”


End file.
